Sunday, May 12, 2013

The day Gert had my back

My dad began morphing into
Kasper Guttman at the Selective Service office in Portage, Wis.
We'd driven there to appeal a notice I received lifting my student
draft deferment after I flunked out of college for the third time.
The notice said I'd be re-classified 1-A unless I could persuade the
local draft board otherwise.

It
was spring 1963. U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was growing.
Our role was still classified as advisory, but more and more American
troops and war materials were showing up in that distant land every
day. I was more annoyed than worried. I didn't especially want
to be a soldier, but the prospect of adventure had a vague
attraction. My dad was dead set against my being drafted.

We'd
talked a little about my strategy on the hour-long drive from
Columbus. Were I enrolled in a community college I might get to keep
my deferment. Trouble was, I was tired of school. I had lousy
study habits. I had graduated with honors from high school, but
it was a small school and the coursework wasn't rigorous. I hadn't
developed enough self-discipline to cope with the independence,
academic demands and social distractions of a major university. Maybe
I could handle a smaller college, something more like my high school.

“Are
you enrolled?” The woman behind the desk was the only person in the
small office. Her hair was gray, but she was no sweet, cheek-pinching
grandma. No smile, no friendly greeting, flat voice. All business,
this bureaucrat.

“Umm...”

My
dad took over. “Not yet,” he said, “But he intends to apply as
soon as possible.” There was some question as to whether my
academic status might prevent me from enrolling in any college. We
hadn't looked into that yet.

The
woman's eyes never left mine. She asked another question or two, and
each time my dad responded before I could say a word. Finally, she
turned from me and addressed my dad. “Who is the applicant here,
you or him?” She motioned with her head back at me, her voice
arched with sarcasm.

Just outside the office,
loudly enough so the woman could hear him through the glass door, my
dad told me not to worry, that he had some kind of legal leverage
over one of the draft board members. A slap in the face couldn't have
hurt me more than those words. I was stunned, but not so much that I
couldn't feel the unfamiliar emotion that was born at that moment
somewhere inside my heart. It started as a spark of disbelief and
quickly burst into disillusionment. Despite the frailties I had come
to see in my dad – and there was a fair bill of particulars,
considering his lawyerly self-loathing arrogance – my sense of his
personal honor had never been in doubt. Seeing him now in a Sydney
Greenstreet role, the kind of wheeling dealing villain who did what
he had to do to get what he wanted no matter how foul or who might
get hurt, The
Maltese Falcon's
Kasper Guttman, was my first unsentimental glimpse of the man I had
once wanted to be.

We
drove home in silence. Next day I told my mother I was going to
enlist in the Army. That evening, my dad tried to talk me out of it,
hurling the usual clichés
about throwing my life away and how dare I do this to them. I didn't
budge. Then he played his trump card.

My
anger was more controlled than I believe it had ever been. It was
hard and cold and determined. I looked at my mother, who sat in a
separate chair next to his.

“Are you, Gert? Are you
dying a little every minute because I've decided to join the Army?”
Our eyes locked. Ordinarily she'd have glanced at her husband before
answering a question so clearly defiant of his authority. Instead she
smiled, shook her head slightly and murmured, “No.”